[Olpc-sysadmin] Limitations of current git/Activity-hosting system: absent maintainers

[Mel Chua]

Brian inadvertently provided an example tonight of the limitations of 
our current git/Activity-hosting system, which we've been discussing a 
bit during VIG meetings.

1. Brian Jordan found and reported a bug against Paint (afaik, this is 
one of the Activities we have so far shipped by default on all XOs): 
http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/8865

2. He found a fix for it too, and posted the necessary code.

3. And... can't push it because the maintainer isn't responding. So the 
bug remains unfixed.

At this point, Brian could probably ask sysadmin at laptop.org for commit 
privs to the git repo and since we know/love/trust Brian we'd probably 
want to let him do it, but this (A) wouldn't work for people who Aren't 
Brian / We Don't Know, and (B) is kind of rude for the maintainer.

Or Brian could make his own fork which would be totally separate from 
the original Activity development - a little thing off somewhere else, 
hosted in a random place, pretty much unfindable.

This is a good example of why I like Mitchell Charity's idea of 
gitorious. ;) Is there something we can do with our current 
infrastructure to ease situations like this? (Making it easier/possible 
to track down maintainers, or commit fixes in their absence?)

-Mel